Pitting Cherries Doesn't Have To Be The Pits

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Fresh cherries are one of the best things about summer - particularly sour cherries, the kind you bake into pies. But since sour cherries have such a short season, lots of us like to pick a lot of pints or buy several quarts during the few weeks they are available and freeze or can them to enjoy later in the year. That's how I ended up staring at three quarts of sour cherries that needed to be pitted.

While there are new and old fashioned gadgets designed for pitting cherries, most people say they either smash the fruit or are very tedious to use. But I found a great tip that made pitting cherries easy - use a plastic straw. Wash your cherries just before you're ready to use them, then remove the stems, and just push a plastic drinking straw through the stem end - the pit pops out the other side and the cherries stay whole.

It was simple, cheap, and incredibly fast without smashing any of those pretty summer cherries.

Reported By Phran Novelli, KYW Newsradio